A quick-and-dirty healing power fix

A quick-and-dirty healing power fix

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Posted by: Narrrz.7532

Narrrz.7532

merge with vitality.

toughness already increases healing effectiveness (versus direct damage attacks, at least) and the effect of high toughness can be very noticeable.

Vitality already has a significant effect, but as many people like to point out, it’s basically a one-shot effect; The amount of damage required to down you increases with vitality, but if you receive any healing whatsoever, toughness straight up outclasses it. Hell, it probably outclasses it point for point even if you don’t heal at all.
Healing power, meanwhile, is left in a very sorry spot as a stat which is only niche useful, and basically any boost to it runs the risk of changing the meta towards the hated enemy of hard trinity.

i think as it stands, healing power simply needs to go. If it were folded into vitality so that stat increases not only your total health but also your healing received, i think it could bring both stats into a much better position.

Edit:I’ve been thinking more about how healing could be managed without a healing power stat, to make it viable without being essential and useful without a major stat investment in it. I think a temporary boon is the way to go.

Benevolence: Stacks duration, increases healing to other characters by 33% (ie, not affecting self healing at all; vitality would be your way of increasing that)

No skills would ordinarily apply this boon (to fit with the philosophy of not requiring a character to sacrifice a major part of their utility to amplify their healing). Instead, different traits for each character would give them access to it:
-Engineer: Alchemy line, Tier 1: Health insurance now grants you 10sec benevolence upon equipping a med kit or elixir gun, and adds Benevolence to the boons applied by Elixir B
-Elementalist: Water line, Tier 2: Soothing Disruption now grants Benevolence as well as vigor & regeneration when you use a cantrip
Arcane line, Tier 1.5: Elemental Attunement gives you benevolence upon switching to water (all targets still gain regeneration)
-Guardian: Virtues line, Tier 2: Absolute Resolution also grants you Benevolence
Honor line, Tier 3: Force of will amplifies outgoing healing by the same amount that vitality usually increases incoming healing (basically, no change in function)
-Necromancer: Blood line, Tier 1: Ritual of Life causes well of blood to grant Benevolence upon activation
-Ranger: Nature Magic line, Tier 1: Allies Aid causes your water spirit and healing spring to give benevolence
-Warrior: Tactics line, Tier 3: Shouts also give benevolence

(i don’t think thieves have any noteworthy ability to heal allies)

(edited by Narrrz.7532)

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Posted by: joneirikb.7506

joneirikb.7506

Like this idea. Think the game in general need a shakeup on stats in general.

Elrik Noj (Norn Guardian, Kaineng [SIN][Owls])
“Understanding is a three edged sword: your side, their side, and the truth.”
“The objective is to win. The goal is to have fun.”

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Posted by: Nilkemia.8507

Nilkemia.8507

So, higher vitality means more HP and better healing ability? Interesting.

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Posted by: Tuomir.1830

Tuomir.1830

Vitality has a clear advantage over toughness – conditions. While toughness has synergy with healing power, it’s countered by conditions. I run a ranger with cleric stats in PvP and WvW – if I could have the high healing efficiency, direct damage resistance and high hp, I’d be unstoppable. To get it now, you need to sacrifice all your offensive stats, but if you could do it with just two, it would be ridiculously broken, or the effects would have to be scaled down so far as to be pointless.

Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.

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Posted by: Narrrz.7532

Narrrz.7532

Vitality has a clear advantage over toughness – conditions. While toughness has synergy with healing power, it’s countered by conditions. I run a ranger with cleric stats in PvP and WvW – if I could have the high healing efficiency, direct damage resistance and high hp, I’d be unstoppable. To get it now, you need to sacrifice all your offensive stats, but if you could do it with just two, it would be ridiculously broken, or the effects would have to be scaled down so far as to be pointless.

I might be mistaken but doesn’t cleric prefix give toughness? I’m not sure what you’re getting at, if healing power was converted to vitality and vitality made to incorporate a degree of healing, then granted, any build that incorporates both vitality and toughness would be very resilient. The extent to which vitality would increase healing would have to be carefully balanced, but ultimately it could only improve vitality as a stat, and if the healing bonus is percentage based then it’s likely that at moderate to high levels of vitality, your healing would outstrip that provided by the current healing power stat. That’s sort of the point.

However, in that you’re not stacking pure (or even primarily) damage, your dps output would be substantially lower than someone wearing zerk/sini. Again, that’s the idea.

So, higher vitality means more HP and better healing ability?

I think increasing all outgoing healing would be too powerful (and wouldn’t make as much sense anyhow) so it would mostly be self healing ability.
Either way, this stat would become the condition damage counter the way that toughness is presently the direct damage counter.

(edited by Narrrz.7532)

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Posted by: PaxTheGreatOne.9472

PaxTheGreatOne.9472

I am just thinking of Carrion,
Condition dmg, vitality (then to incorporate healing), and power..

I’d alter it and say healing stats as is,
scaling should be improved, base heal should be lowered and
at 1000 vitality you recieve the normal healing MODIFIED by additional vitality, could add 2% effectivenes per 100 vitality on receiver only..
at max vitality it would add 36% to the normal heal..

23 lvl 80’s, 9 times map, 4ele, 4ncr, 3war, 3grd, 3rgr, 2thf, 2msm, 1eng, 1 rev.
Been There, Done That & Will do it again…except maybe world completion.

(edited by PaxTheGreatOne.9472)

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Posted by: Tuomir.1830

Tuomir.1830

Vitality has a clear advantage over toughness – conditions. While toughness has synergy with healing power, it’s countered by conditions. I run a ranger with cleric stats in PvP and WvW – if I could have the high healing efficiency, direct damage resistance and high hp, I’d be unstoppable. To get it now, you need to sacrifice all your offensive stats, but if you could do it with just two, it would be ridiculously broken, or the effects would have to be scaled down so far as to be pointless.

I might be mistaken but doesn’t cleric prefix give toughness? I’m not sure what you’re getting at, if healing power was converted to vitality and vitality made to incorporate a degree of healing, then granted, any build that incorporates both vitality and toughness would be very resilient. The extent to which vitality would increase healing would have to be carefully balanced, but ultimately it could only improve vitality as a stat, and if the healing bonus is percentage based then it’s likely that at moderate to high levels of vitality, your healing would outstrip that provided by the current healing power stat. That’s sort of the point.

If Vitality and Healing Power were to be rolled together, then the equivalent stat combo to Cleric would be Sentinel’s, with the massive healing power rolled in. That would have more or less equal sustain as Nomad has now, with added power. Any defensive stat combo without the new vitality would be overshadowed and left on the sidelines.

To put it simply, it would make toughness inferior, whereas now they both have their own distinct roles in sustain. Toughness protects you from direct damage and works well with healing power, vitality is your buffer against all health loss, including conditions that go straight past your toughness. I’m not sure if I can make this any clearer.

Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.

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Posted by: FrostSpectre.4198

FrostSpectre.4198

Based on Guardian’s “Force of Will”, right?

I’m a casual PvE adventurer, I enjoy combat, adventure and helping, but not farming.
I rarely do PvP or Hard PvE, unless it’s organized.

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Posted by: Narrrz.7532

Narrrz.7532

Based on Guardian’s “Force of Will”, right?

Actually, that hadn’t even occurred to me…

but yes, if it was implemented with too high heal scaling, it would definitely overshadow toughness. That’s why i’m not suggesting actual numbers, just considering mechanics.

And vitality is only a one-shot buffer right now. Toughness effectively multiplies both your buffer and your ability to replenish it, but only against direct damage. Since this buff to vitality would make it so that the stat not only increases hp buffer, but also your ability to replenish it versus any damage type, the healing aspect of it should be less powerful point-for-point than toughness currently is.

On the other hand, the two stats will synergize extremely well, to the point that a hybrid build might actually be worthwhile. As it stands, on any class but thief, guard or ele, itemizing for vitality seems like completely wasted stat points. Healing power, i think, is in an even worse space. Combining the two stats would put both in a much better space, and unless the numbers are so low as to be absurd, could make both stats worth taking in some measure on any character.

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Posted by: Rauderi.8706

Rauderi.8706

Definitely worth considering. The changes to gear sets would possibly leave room for significant +boon duration as well, making for stronger support characters. And it would provide more options in filtering in offensive stats.

With Vit/Heal easier to gain in that regard, healing would have to scale differently, but we’ve been asking for that to balance healing power better anyway.

Many alts; handle it!
“I’m finding companies should sell access to forums,
it seems many like them better than the games they comment on.” -Horrorscope.7632

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Posted by: Rin.1046

Rin.1046

I am not so keen on this idea. To get max direct damage output you need to invest in 3 stat types (pow, pre & fer). To get max condi damage output you also need to invest in 3 stat types (condi dam, pre & pow/tough (depending on your set up)).

The same should be similar for defensive and supportive builds. If you lump healing power into vitality, players only need to invest in 1 stat to get a massive boost to their survival, and on some professions that would be too strong.

A better way to improve healing power would be to adjust all healing related skills, and regen, to scale better with healing power.

Simplicity is complex.

Good feedback is key to getting the developers to listen to you.

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Posted by: Aetrion.8295

Aetrion.8295

The biggest problem with defensive stats and healing power is that taking damage in GW2 is a state of failure. The whole thing that busts the trinity in GW2 is that skilled players can avoid taking damage.

Because of this any stat or ability that are only useful after you have taken damage becomes less useful the more skill the player has. The only way to make all stats equally good is to give all of them a positive impact before the point of failure. Let them do good before the player screwed up, so they are useful for players who don’t screw up.

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Posted by: Narrrz.7532

Narrrz.7532

The biggest problem with defensive stats and healing power is that taking damage in GW2 is a state of failure. The whole thing that busts the trinity in GW2 is that skilled players can avoid taking damage.

Because of this any stat or ability that are only useful after you have taken damage becomes less useful the more skill the player has. The only way to make all stats equally good is to give all of them a positive impact before the point of failure. Let them do good before the player screwed up, so they are useful for players who don’t screw up.

I don’t completely agree. it’s definitely possible to avoid a lot of damage, and there are certain attacks which you essentially HAVE to avoid, but a lot of the time it’s simply not economical to spend your endurance if you expect to be able to survive the incoming damage and your healing skill is off cooldown.

vitality of course extends the amount of damage you can survive, but again, once that pool is gone there’s no effective way to replenish it.

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Posted by: Aetrion.8295

Aetrion.8295

But that’s why everyone has a healing skill, and an Elementalist or Guardian in full DPS gear can still easily provide enough healing to counter the small amounts of damage you just take from random monsters.

The bottom line is, if you raise unavoidable damage to a level where it has to be countered by a dedicated healer you’ve basically just brought back the trinity. The idea here is to give support and tank players a role without making everyone else dependent on them, and that is best accomplished by having the consequence to less healing in the party or not having anyone to take the hits be lower damage, not death.

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Posted by: starlinvf.1358

starlinvf.1358

But that’s why everyone has a healing skill, and an Elementalist or Guardian in full DPS gear can still easily provide enough healing to counter the small amounts of damage you just take from random monsters.

The bottom line is, if you raise unavoidable damage to a level where it has to be countered by a dedicated healer you’ve basically just brought back the trinity. The idea here is to give support and tank players a role without making everyone else dependent on them, and that is best accomplished by having the consequence to less healing in the party or not having anyone to take the hits be lower damage, not death.

This is why I’m starting to think we need more pressure type effects for both PvP and PvE. Our problem right now is that pressure (low damage, high uptime) AOE effects don’t pack enough power to be dangerous, and the tuning we have now stacks way too quickly. It also messes Aegis’ mechanic as a 1 shot counter.

I’ve slowly formulating this idea that we might have better luck converting Aegis to stack counts, like they did with stability, and retuning all skills around the idea of low damage, high sustain AOE fields for more damage over time. This won’t exclude high damage, low sustain fields for burst damage; but is trying to give us more pressure options that don’t easily swing to either extreme.

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

i think as it stands, healing power simply needs to go. If it were folded into vitality so that stat increases not only your total health but also your healing received, i think it could bring both stats into a much better position.

This begs questions. What about all the existing stat prefixes with either Vitality or Healing? Do they get a “fourth” stat for free? What about sets with both? Do they also end up with “four” because you know a set with just two stats would be ignored? What about PvP modes where bunkers are already considered too hard to kill by some? Sure, there are counters to bunker builds, and good players use them. However, what happens to those counters if bunker stats get better?

The idea here is to give support and tank players a role without making everyone else dependent on them, and that is best accomplished by having the consequence to less healing in the party or not having anyone to take the hits be lower damage, not death.

If ANet were to contrive mechanics that meant that someone passively absorbing hits and/or someone else throwing out healing and regeneration meant greater party damage than without them, they would be required. If ANet somehow also made it so that all-glass players could do the content but with lesser efficiency, then that tank/healer would be required the same way that all-glass is required now — in the perceptions of players.

GW2 support already increases damage, in the form of greater attack up-time by virtue of_not_ needing to dodge all the hits, in the form of increasing power, condition damage and critical chance, in positioning targets for greater advantage and in keeping allies up so that time is not spent on reviving/being revived.

It’s clear that ANet is introducing more options for healing aficionados in HoT (and with traits 2.0), as well as more support options and a (questionably effective on first pass) damage absorbing spec in Jalis. They’ve promised content that will require greater use of the existing GW2 mechanics — most of which are active. Maybe before talking about making further changes, it would be a good idea to see how all that pans out.

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Posted by: Solandri.9640

Solandri.9640

Anet already stumbled onto the “fix” for healing power. During the krait tower event, you had to play with constant health degen. Suddenly you couldn’t ignore healing power (and healing/regen-related skills and traits) or you’d end up using all your heals just to counter the degen.

Make more areas like that and healing power will become more important. Trying to make it more powerful (by increasing its effect or combining it with other stats) just throws off combat balance. If your existing build can heal more, you can survive fights better, meaning weapon damage needs to be increased to compensate.

Health degen is countered almost entirely by healing power alone (vitality also affects it, but only for as many seconds as it takes to drain your hp pool). So is the perfect way to make healing power more important without throwing other parts of the game out of balance.

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Posted by: Dand.8231

Dand.8231

I actually think a middle ground would be best.

How about this: Healing Power continues to affect all healing you CAUSE. But Vitality above 1000 now also (in addition to hp pool) influences all healing you RECEIVE.

So for example, presently Engi Healing Turret is: 2,520 + (Engi Healing power * 0.5), which means in sPvP, a Cele engi would have 560 healing, and heal himself and his allies for 2800 using this turret.

The new formula would be 2,520 + ((Engi Healing power + Targets Vitality – 1000) * 0.5)
The same Cele engi would now heal himself for 3080, about 10% more overall. This is because his Healing Power affects the outgoing heal, and since he is also the target, his Vitality comes into play.

Zerker amulet using allies affected by this Engis turret would gain no bonus healing, 2800.
Marauder allies would heal for 3080, also 10% more.
Soldiers would heal for 3250, or 16% more
Sentinels would heal for 3400, a 21% boost

Is this double dipping? Absolutely. But the current state of damage vs defense vs healing is a bit out whack, with Damage being king, defense being a bit weak, and healing being close to useless outside a few rare builds. The only issue I forsee is D/D elementalists could be indirectly buffed by this sort of change, and they’re already in a mildly OP state.

It also makes sense that having more vitality could increase your incoming healing.

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Posted by: TexZero.7910

TexZero.7910

So do you plan on gutting nomad gear like they did to travelers with this or is there something else you’ve thought up as a solution ?

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Posted by: Khristophoros.7194

Khristophoros.7194

I much preferred the suggestion to add boon duration to it.

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Posted by: Aetrion.8295

Aetrion.8295

If ANet were to contrive mechanics that meant that someone passively absorbing hits and/or someone else throwing out healing and regeneration meant greater party damage than without them, they would be required.

Nobody is saying greater party damage, just equal party damage. If one supporter in a group of 5 could raise everyone’s DPS by 20%, and provide 20% of what a DPSer brings in by himself it’d even out with what you get with a full group of DPSers.

Is there a possibility that the meta might start trending toward including healers? Yea, there is. But it’s not like that is definitely a bad thing, afterall, right now the meta REQUIRES you to bring only DPS, to run only specific builds, and only bring specific classes.

The reality of guild wars is, they talk a lot about eliminating support and tanks so you can “play how you want” but in reality you don’t get to play how you want at all if you don’t want to play full zerker DPS.

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Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Another idea!
Healing power also increases boon duration, 1% per 40 points. (30% at 1200 hp)

Make Ferocity increase condition duration by 1% per 40 points!

Add Condi/Crit/Ferocity gear!

Ferocity is now a linked stat between Condi builds and Power. Conditions will not have more than 1 stat for performance. Ferocity will no longer be the only stat that is 100% useless without another stat supporting it, as it will have a base benefit. Healing power will be more useful.

Best of all, it gives access to the benefits we used to have via trait lines!

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

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Posted by: Kosmo.5187

Kosmo.5187

You could also make healing power scale significantly better but increase the cooldown on heal skills to make them a much more important choice. This would also place a greater play on various traits, skills, and sigils that provide passive healing. Adjust it so that they’re closer to how they updated condition damage; if you got no healing power it’s trivial, but as you ramp up on it the effects become greater.

Right now you’re just not “rewarded” for taking healing power in the same fashion that you are for taking condition damage, because base healing is designed to be enough to keep you easily alive at all times. Maybe no healing power should make that more difficult, more should make it somewhat easier, and a large amount should make it feel rather comfortable. I’m not sure the split with “Outgoing Healing” was a good step.

I don’t think you’ll be able to implement a healing power solution without a balance pass on traits and skills that surround this aspect of the game.

Think of the possibilities.

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

The reality of guild wars is, they talk a lot about eliminating support and tanks so you can “play how you want” but in reality you don’t get to play how you want at all if you don’t want to play full zerker DPS.

I prefer not giving power to the pseudo meta guys on the LFG, so I tend to ignore those groups and their requirements. I get to play how I want every time I play. Anyone who wants to do so can, they just have to stop empowering the people who try to parrot the meta. I guess I don’t expect that, though.

Regardless, I don’t think the OP’s idea would work. The stats are balanced for PvP and to a lesser extent WvW. They’re also balanced for PvE, but for some reason PvE players want the stats to do more of the work, whereas no one who plays PvP seriously expects that to happen. Doubling up vitality and healing would break that balance.

I’m not sure how your plan to have a healer or tank buff everyone’s damage by 20% would work. Would that be in addition to might/fury, etc? What would happen to dodge? What about aegis, reflection, et al. that already increase damage by decreasing down time? Defensive support already plays a role in the GW2 combat system. How is your idea different? How does it not break the game?

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Posted by: Aetrion.8295

Aetrion.8295

What’s giving power to the “meta guys” is two things:

1. They dominate the only objective measure of how well you’re doing in PvE. Sure, you can have a personal preference for doing it some way over another, but in terms of actual metrics the only valid one in GW2 is how fast you can finish the dungeon, and how fast you can earn your gear. You simply can’t get around the fact that meta is the one way of doing things that is reals not feels. Every other approach can only ever say “I find this more fun”, when they can say “I do it the fastest”. Meeting a challenge simply happens to be part of the fun of a game for many people, and you can’t challenge someone to out-fun you, you can only challenge them to out-run you.

2. They are dedicated to winning and getting stuff done, so they are the ones who create guilds that consistently put together runs and get members geared and trained. Let’s face it, it’s people who are obsessed with optimization that make guilds that actually optimize the advancement of their members. There is a huge difference between a guild that runs a fractal or two when they feel like it and may or may not do guild missions and a guild that is in there consistently ever night getting people kitted. If you care about getting stuff done at all it’s the “meta-guys” that will go out of their way to help you, they will just expect you to play in a way that gets stuff done.

Asking “how will this not break the game?” when the game is already completely broken in the way only DPS gear is worth having and half the classes might as well be lepers for how welcome they are in dungeons is just silly. There needs to be more build diversity in the game, and unless you’re willing to wipe parties for not having enough healing or tanking, healing or tanking will just have to be able to be an asset to completion speed.

The “meta guys” are not the problem, the game is the problem. They crunched the numbers and the numbers said “the only objective measure of performance in the game completely excludes all support and defense geared characters”.

You could also make healing power scale significantly better but increase the cooldown on heal skills to make them a much more important choice. This would also place a greater play on various traits, skills, and sigils that provide passive healing. Adjust it so that they’re closer to how they updated condition damage; if you got no healing power it’s trivial, but as you ramp up on it the effects become greater.

I actually think it would make more sense if the personal healing skills had much shorter cooldowns but were much weaker. If you have to use them more often to self heal you gain a lot more time to do damage when someone else heals you.

(edited by Aetrion.8295)

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Posted by: Narrrz.7532

Narrrz.7532

I really don’t think the prevalence of damage stats is a bad thing, much less a problem. It’s just that there’s no good reason to use anything else, and doing so puts you at too great a disadvantage.

Currently toughness is the ‘good’ defensive stat; it has a measurable diminishing effect on incoming damage under most circumstances, and similarly, increasing it will have give a measurable increase to survivability in almost all cases.

Vitality is the ‘okay’ defensive stat; increasing it has a measurable effect on prolonging survival, but from a mathematical perspective, its effect is additive rather than multiplicative. It adds x seconds to the length of time you can survive a given level of incoming damage per second; while toughness could modify this number below the threshold for indefinite survival, vitality cannot.

Healing power is the worst of the defensive stats, partly because of its scaling, primarily because of its mechanic. it has no direct effect on survivability – if you are afk, healing power will not extend your survival by any length of time. While i grant this isn’t a particularly useful measure of utility for a stat (no offensive stat fares any better, after all) it does make healing power the most niche skill, in that it has no passive effect and empowers the most narrow range of skills. This is the reason for its poor scaling; buff it to the level of viability, and all content becomes trivial as healing would be enough to ignore mechanics entirely; below this threshold there’s no reason to take the stat at all, as other stats will provide more broad utility. To rework healing power to the point of functionality would require either a complete change in design philosophy so that unavoidable damage is so high that healing power is mandatory, or else buffing the stat to the extent that it is so powerful that not itemizing for it is idiocy.

The best solution is just to remove this obsolete stat entirely, and fold its effects into the other ailing attribute.

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Posted by: Kosmo.5187

Kosmo.5187

You could also make healing power scale significantly better but increase the cooldown on heal skills to make them a much more important choice. This would also place a greater play on various traits, skills, and sigils that provide passive healing. Adjust it so that they’re closer to how they updated condition damage; if you got no healing power it’s trivial, but as you ramp up on it the effects become greater.

I actually think it would make more sense if the personal healing skills had much shorter cooldowns but were much weaker. If you have to use them more often to self heal you gain a lot more time to do damage when someone else heals you.

While I agree that this could also be a viable idea in terms of gameplay, how would you propose this should be done in a way that improves the Healing Power stat? Should it still scale much better but within the context of the shorter heal cooldowns, or are you suggesting they basically keep the status quo of the stat having little effect to avoid people from healing like crazy with heals on a short cooldown?

One reason why the meta exists as it does is that there is no need for these people to really have healing – not just for each other in the typical “healer” sense – even for themselves. I don’t think it’s a far stretch that the game could have group content that requires people to keep each other alive. As long as any character can fill the role, such a challenge should not be an issue akin to “finding a healer”.

This would naturally be easier if you had trait templates. Big numbers is one gameplay reward. I think saving a teammates life should be another prominent one. In any case, I think the fact that you can solo some dungeon content at “end game” shows that it’s definitely not balanced very well for 5 person requirement, so of course the meta is going to be people with maximum damage potential.

Think of the possibilities.

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Posted by: Aetrion.8295

Aetrion.8295

A might share warrior can give his whole party 10-15 might permanently without even trying very hard, which means every single member of that party is doing easily 20% more damage than they otherwise would be. The warrior is a high hitpoint, high damage character on top of that, so basically having a warrior in your party makes your party do damage like it had 6 people in it.

Despite that nobody has an issue with “finding a warrior”.

The problem with healing power is that it doesn’t provide anywhere near as useful of a buff to the party and eats up your entire stat budget. A support function that exists purely to keep people from dying simply isn’t useful unless they will definitely die without you.

So, it simply comes down to ability design. If healing was more like Might Share it would be more useful, more desirable to spec for, while at the same time not being required to succeed. It might become required for making the most powerful possible meta party, but then it’s not like there aren’t any requirements for building that right now, so there is nothing lost there except maybe a few berzerker items.

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Posted by: Narrrz.7532

Narrrz.7532

Well another idea i’ve been toying with is to add in a ‘benevolence’ boon which would increase outgoing healing (to parallel the incoming bonus from reworked vitality), and replacing the condition damage on might boon with ferocity, then changing fury (perhaps to ‘malice’) to an intensity stacking bonus to precision and condition damage.

These are all tweaks to an already well structured attribute system, though, which i don’t feel is true of the system presently in place

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Posted by: Coulter.2315

Coulter.2315

Before fixing Healing Power you need to try and make people take damage, monsters attacking faster in HoT and in larger numbers with better AI will be more important than any buff to the stat you can conceive of – because atm healing is irrelevant for there is nothing to heal.

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Posted by: Kosmo.5187

Kosmo.5187

Coulter, I agree with you, and have suggested different ways to make combat meaningful. Basically, the sentiment in all these threads, be they about combat, healing power, or what have you, is a desire to broaden the horizon of combat gameplay, but at the same time the game is moving towards a numbing abyss. People aren’t really asking for more than cashing in on existing potential, and I think combat and healing can go hand in hand there. In fact, it may even be inevitable if one is to maximize the gameplay potential.

On a similar note: It’s a shame to see the game be dumbed down (to what end?) across the board. If there really are people who are that confused about the combat system and the fact that they can die in the game, then I doubt they’ll be playing any meaningful encounters with any enjoyment anyway. Should it not be these kinds of players who are ushered to “mild” zones with super easy content, rather than basically all of PvE being made trivial? If there really are that many of them, they wont be lonely there, and maybe one day they will graduate to fight enemies that can kill them.

Think of the possibilities.

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Posted by: Aetrion.8295

Aetrion.8295

Putting hitpoints back on a person in a system where hitpoints do nothing but count down to your death will never be useful unless you die if nobody does it. (And then you have the trinity)

You cannot fix healing by making people take more damage, because the only way they will want a healer is if they die unless they have one, and that’s exactly what GW2 does not want. The only way to ever make “putting hitpoints back” appealing without flat out killing people unless someone puts their hitpoints back is to make hitpoints do more than just kill you when they reach zero.

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Posted by: Azure.8670

Azure.8670

I much preferred the suggestion to add boon duration to it.

Healing power imo should effect boon duration and condi duration.

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Posted by: Leo G.4501

Leo G.4501

Putting hitpoints back on a person in a system where hitpoints do nothing but count down to your death will never be useful unless you die if nobody does it. (And then you have the trinity)

You cannot fix healing by making people take more damage, because the only way they will want a healer is if they die unless they have one, and that’s exactly what GW2 does not want. The only way to ever make “putting hitpoints back” appealing without flat out killing people unless someone puts their hitpoints back is to make hitpoints do more than just kill you when they reach zero.

That’s rather a pedantic way of viewing hp.

Hp does do more than count down to death. You really should look up mmo effective hp calcs and mortality lines, then when you’re done with that, look up some traits that work off of % of hp.

Hp actually is similar to Armor. If people look at hp as ablative armor that can be repaired (and every character has means of repairing it besides the broken reset feature), you’d realize how good hp is. People just get hung up on how one makes it more effective.

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Posted by: Einlanzer.1627

Einlanzer.1627

It’s not a terrible idea, but I don’t think vitality is as useless as you suggest. Healing Power, however, is very obviously under-tuned and needs to just get a buff. I think it should just be percentage based like crit damage.

I don’t know what they’re thinking leaving it like it’s been for 3 years.

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Posted by: Rauderi.8706

Rauderi.8706

I much preferred the suggestion to add boon duration to it.

Healing power imo should effect boon duration and condi duration.

My reflex on that was ‘no to condi duration,’ and yet..

I like that idea. 1% boon/condi duration per hundred, and healing power would be a much stronger choice.

Many alts; handle it!
“I’m finding companies should sell access to forums,
it seems many like them better than the games they comment on.” -Horrorscope.7632

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Posted by: Rauderi.8706

Rauderi.8706

It’s not a terrible idea, but I don’t think vitality is as useless as you suggest. Healing Power, however, is very obviously under-tuned and needs to just get a buff. I think it should just be percentage based like crit damage.

I don’t know what they’re thinking leaving it like it’s been for 3 years.

I’m sure it’s because of..
wait for it..
e-sports.

MMOs are constantly ruled by a niche segment of the game, because it draws attention. So, the game continues to be balanced around PvP, and if healing power got overtuned, the kitten wave would exceed the old Traits 2.0 thread length.

Many alts; handle it!
“I’m finding companies should sell access to forums,
it seems many like them better than the games they comment on.” -Horrorscope.7632

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Posted by: Einlanzer.1627

Einlanzer.1627

It’s not a terrible idea, but I don’t think vitality is as useless as you suggest. Healing Power, however, is very obviously under-tuned and needs to just get a buff. I think it should just be percentage based like crit damage.

I don’t know what they’re thinking leaving it like it’s been for 3 years.

I’m sure it’s because of..
wait for it..
e-sports.

MMOs are constantly ruled by a niche segment of the game, because it draws attention. So, the game continues to be balanced around PvP, and if healing power got overtuned, the kitten wave would exceed the old Traits 2.0 thread length.

Well then they should just buff it in other game modes. It’s not rocket science.

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Posted by: Azure.8670

Azure.8670

I much preferred the suggestion to add boon duration to it.

Healing power imo should effect boon duration and condi duration.

My reflex on that was ‘no to condi duration,’ and yet..

I like that idea. 1% boon/condi duration per hundred, and healing power would be a much stronger choice.

It makes the most sense imo. Power builds use power precision and ferocity. Condi use just condi, maybe power, and are forced to get duraturn from runes and foods if possible. If you tie duration with healing power it opens up new rune selection and l viability

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Posted by: Einlanzer.1627

Einlanzer.1627

I much preferred the suggestion to add boon duration to it.

Healing power imo should effect boon duration and condi duration.

My reflex on that was ‘no to condi duration,’ and yet..

I like that idea. 1% boon/condi duration per hundred, and healing power would be a much stronger choice.

It makes the most sense imo. Power builds use power precision and ferocity. Condi use just condi, maybe power, and are forced to get duraturn from runes and foods if possible. If you tie duration with healing power it opens up new rune selection and l viability

I think that healing power should just be like ferocity/crit damage (% increase) and that boon and condition damage need to be combined into one stat that works the same way and normalized on gear. I’ve posted about this before.

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Posted by: Rauderi.8706

Rauderi.8706

It’s not a terrible idea, but I don’t think vitality is as useless as you suggest. Healing Power, however, is very obviously under-tuned and needs to just get a buff. I think it should just be percentage based like crit damage.

I don’t know what they’re thinking leaving it like it’s been for 3 years.

I’m sure it’s because of..
wait for it..
e-sports.

MMOs are constantly ruled by a niche segment of the game, because it draws attention. So, the game continues to be balanced around PvP, and if healing power got overtuned, the kitten wave would exceed the old Traits 2.0 thread length.

Well then they should just buff it in other game modes. It’s not rocket science.

And that’s a conversation for an entirely different thread. :P
I’m sure lots of people would love to see better PvE and PvP balance by making traits and skills differ between modes.

But, back on track, I do like the idea of healing power being a percentage-based heal instead of holding a dozen different scales based on skill. It’s likely one of the big problems with healing power as a whole, is that it applies different throughout every healing skill.

Many alts; handle it!
“I’m finding companies should sell access to forums,
it seems many like them better than the games they comment on.” -Horrorscope.7632

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Posted by: Dawdler.8521

Dawdler.8521

OR they could just increase the healing power modifiers on skills. That would be even quicker and much less dirty.

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Posted by: Hoaxintelligence.4628

Hoaxintelligence.4628

Why did they nerfed healing power in the first place? Maybe they have big plans

Sît[MII]Ultimate Dominator
U N D E R W O R L D
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Posted by: emikochan.8504

emikochan.8504

You take healing power if you want to heal other people, it’s different to vitality where you’re keeping yourself alive.

Welcome to my world – http://emikochan13.wordpress.com

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Posted by: Carighan.6758

Carighan.6758

You take healing power if you want to heal other people, it’s different to vitality where you’re keeping yourself alive.

This doesn’t make sense because the access to the ability to heal others isn’t universal or balanced.

The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.

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Posted by: NikeEU.7690

NikeEU.7690

Lets say we all agree for a minute that healing power is weak (we don’t, though) does that necessarily mean it should be buffed? Just because something is weak doesn’t mean it should be buffed. Some things are intentionally weak because buffing them even a little would make them insanely OP.

So logically you have two problems.

1. You haven’t even tried to prove the point that Healing Power is weak. D/D ele proves how useful healing power is in PvP and full AFK dungeon solos in tank gear prove how powerful it is in PvE. So unless you prove it’s weak, you suggesting a fix to what isn’t proving to be broken. Cart before the horse.

2. Even if you somehow manage to establish that HP is weak, you then have to prove it deserves to be buffed. You’d have to prove that the game balance, playability and fun factor would all be increased with more powerful HP. This will be insanely difficult to do. Over the top healing would lead to PvP going back to the bunker meta which I don’t recall people particularly enjoying. Over the top healing would make PvE even more faceroll since 4x berserker 1x Zealot would only lose like 5% overall team DPS, but gain defensive invincibility. You’ll have a hard case to make.

[DnT]::Nike::
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Posted by: Einlanzer.1627

Einlanzer.1627

Lets say we all agree for a minute that healing power is weak (we don’t, though) does that necessarily mean it should be buffed? Just because something is weak doesn’t mean it should be buffed. Some things are intentionally weak because buffing them even a little would make them insanely OP.

So logically you have two problems.

1. You haven’t even tried to prove the point that Healing Power is weak. D/D ele proves how useful healing power is in PvP and full AFK dungeon solos in tank gear prove how powerful it is in PvE. So unless you prove it’s weak, you suggesting a fix to what isn’t proving to be broken. Cart before the horse.

2. Even if you somehow manage to establish that HP is weak, you then have to prove it deserves to be buffed. You’d have to prove that the game balance, playability and fun factor would all be increased with more powerful HP. This will be insanely difficult to do. Over the top healing would lead to PvP going back to the bunker meta which I don’t recall people particularly enjoying. Over the top healing would make PvE even more faceroll since 4x berserker 1x Zealot would only lose like 5% overall team DPS, but gain defensive invincibility. You’ll have a hard case to make.

Healing Power can be mathematically proven to provide less impact per point investment than any other attribute. The only reason this status quo exists is because the benefit is spread to others through group healing.

That makes it weak, and, frankly, that’s not a good reason for it to be weak because most people not only don’t, but can’t run support/healing builds, which makes healing power a 90% wasted stat.

It’s a design problem, and one they need to correct.

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Posted by: maddoctor.2738

maddoctor.2738

Lets say we all agree for a minute that healing power is weak (we don’t, though) does that necessarily mean it should be buffed? Just because something is weak doesn’t mean it should be buffed. Some things are intentionally weak because buffing them even a little would make them insanely OP.

So logically you have two problems.

1. You haven’t even tried to prove the point that Healing Power is weak. D/D ele proves how useful healing power is in PvP and full AFK dungeon solos in tank gear prove how powerful it is in PvE. So unless you prove it’s weak, you suggesting a fix to what isn’t proving to be broken. Cart before the horse.

2. Even if you somehow manage to establish that HP is weak, you then have to prove it deserves to be buffed. You’d have to prove that the game balance, playability and fun factor would all be increased with more powerful HP. This will be insanely difficult to do. Over the top healing would lead to PvP going back to the bunker meta which I don’t recall people particularly enjoying. Over the top healing would make PvE even more faceroll since 4x berserker 1x Zealot would only lose like 5% overall team DPS, but gain defensive invincibility. You’ll have a hard case to make.

Healing Power can be mathematically proven to provide less impact per point investment than any other attribute. The only reason this status quo exists is because the benefit is spread to others through group healing.

That makes it weak, and, frankly, that’s not a good reason for it to be weak because most people not only don’t, but can’t run support/healing builds, which makes healing power a 90% wasted stat.

It’s a design problem, and one they need to correct.

Mathematically proven that it is weaker than other attributes maybe. In a real situation Healing Power does make the game far easier for the player like Nomad dungeon solos, cleric no dodge dungeon runs etc in PVE and also Healing Power is used by lots of top tier PVP builds. Bunker guardians using Cleric amulet, D/D Eles using Celestial (which also has healing power) etc

I don’t care about the math part. Healing Power is used in the game for what it was meant to do, make life easier for those using it, be it more survivable in PVP or making dungeon runs while wearing a blindfold and having one hand tied behind your back. Can’t do either with Berserker / Assassin gear

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Posted by: Aetrion.8295

Aetrion.8295

That’s rather a pedantic way of viewing hp.

Hp does do more than count down to death. You really should look up mmo effective hp calcs and mortality lines, then when you’re done with that, look up some traits that work off of % of hp.

So, uh, which one of your statements do you want to show that you don’t know what you’re talking about?

The part where you called my point of view pedantic and then go on to say it is more complex than what I said. (Pedantic means overly concerned with minute details and intricacies, if you find something too simple it is anything but pedantic!)

Or maybe the part where you are rattling off a bunch of minor details and intricacies of the system that really don’t majorly factor into what HP does. See, if I think that none of those things really matter in the grand scheme of things, so I actually have cause to call your statement pedantic.

(edited by Aetrion.8295)

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Posted by: Narrrz.7532

Narrrz.7532

Lets say we all agree for a minute that healing power is weak (we don’t, though) does that necessarily mean it should be buffed? Just because something is weak doesn’t mean it should be buffed. Some things are intentionally weak because buffing them even a little would make them insanely OP.

I’m actually assuming that this is the case, and proposing a solution. imo, “intentionally weak” is poor game design that should be fixed.

You haven’t even tried to prove the point that Healing Power is weak. D/D ele proves how useful healing power is in PvP and full AFK dungeon solos in tank gear prove how powerful it is in PvE. So unless you prove it’s weak, you suggesting a fix to what isn’t proving to be broken. Cart before the horse.

I grant the point, but the general consensus (at least on these forums) is that healing power is underwhelming. if that opinion is representative, that’s sufficient reason for a change, even if the stat is balanced or even overpowered.
Also, that it can be used effectively only proves that it’s not use_less_. For it to be strong, by my definition, would require it to be a comparable defensive stat to vitality and toughness for every class and build, not just a very small number of obviously niche builds. I don’t want healing to go entirely, and for the purpose of improving outgoing healing the classes capable of healing others should have access to their own, separate mechanic (e.g. the benevolence boon i mentioned a bit further up). for most classes healing power increases only self healing and it’s simply not a good enough stat to invest in under any circumstances for them.

Even if you somehow manage to establish that HP is weak, you then have to prove it deserves to be buffed. You’d have to prove that the game balance, playability and fun factor would all be increased with more powerful HP. This will be insanely difficult to do. Over the top healing would lead to PvP going back to the bunker meta which I don’t recall people particularly enjoying. Over the top healing would make PvE even more faceroll since 4x berserker 1x Zealot would only lose like 5% overall team DPS, but gain defensive invincibility. You’ll have a hard case to make.

well, i don’t think a buffed healing power stat will contribute positively to game balance. i think it’s unsalvagable in its current form, and needs to be rethought and then reworked completely. Some people have suggested folding boon and condition duration into the stat but i think that at any level above the inconsequential, that will simply serve to drive the stat right into the realm of the OP. Boon duration on its own probably wouldn’t make the stat too powerful, but nor would it make it worth investing in; condi duration would make the stat extremely overpowered in an pvp situation without markedly improving it in pve.

I just haven’t seen anything that makes me think the stat is salvageable, not without a more or less complete redesign of the classes it presently benefits or the way it interacts with abilities in general.

OR they could just increase the healing power modifiers on skills. That would be even quicker and much less dirty.

It also would not fix anything.